Category: Bible heroes

Once there was a very young prince named Joash (II Kings 11:2). They protected him, but did he feel rejected? After all, he didn’t go out much, if ever. He had zero contact with his peers. In fact, he stayed inside a back room for most of his young life. He had no public voice. As for his activity on social media, who could speak of it?

He wasn’t popular. Few knew about him. For the most part, he got ignored.

Imagine living year after year in the same room, looking at the same four walls, and having to keep very quiet about it.

Every time you want to speak, you hear, “SHHHH!”

Joash stayed hidden in a secret place for six years. Did he understand why? We don’t know. He was a mere babe when the tragedy occurred. What we do know is that popularity has a downside. Fallen leaders becomes targets for attack. So do their children.

Sometimes children shut up inside a room may feel rejected. Have you ever felt isolated or rejected? If you have, perhaps – just perhaps, it’s because God was protecting you.

Who knows how old Josiah was when they told him that his brothers had been killed? Their own grandmother Athaliah had them murdered so that she could rule the land. After her son Ahaziah died, she took over. She must have had a strange mindset to kill her own grandchildren.

Obviously she thought she knew best, but God had other plans.

But wherever she went, silence was sure to follow. All talking must be kept to a whisper, because the moment she found about this king, all would be lost.

Life outside that room was dangerous. Whatever isolation Joash felt inside the bedchamber served to protect him from his wicked grandmother.

Did he ever feel abandoned? If so, he wasn’t alone. He had a caretaker, a nurse who looked after him. We’re never totally in our troubles. Even if everyone else leaves us, God is still there.

“When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.” Psalm 27:10